TRANSCRIPT
Sydney-based sailing coach Viktor Kovalenko is referred to by his colleagues as 'the medal maker'.
Over the past two decades he has guided Australia to seven Olympic gold medals.
He says that in past years, Australia was consistently in the top 10 with Olympic results - an achievement that he attributes to the "spirit, health and power of Australia".
However, as he told SBS News, Australia's support system for the athletes is not helping enough to enhance their opportunities - especially in the lead up to the Olympic Games in Brisbane in 2032.
"To reach success in sport, to be number one, to be a world medallist, you have to dedicate all of your life. And in sport, this is the same like to produce secret weapons. You have to collect the best people who can do the job, create the best conditions, supply them everything - not only equipment, but also make their life easy. But if they have to think about how to feed their family and how to support their future. It is very difficult to do this."
Athletes in Australia are supported through various channels — targeted government grants, corporate and philanthropic platforms.
The level of government support varies, depending on the sports organisation, as well as the athlete's results.
Ryan Holloway is the chief partnerships officer at the Australian Sports Foundation.
He says that significant number of athletes do not have support from a specific sporting body.
"There are about 26 per cent of athletes competing at the Olympics that would see financial support from a sporting body. They have to find alternate means of revenue and funding to be able to assist with their dreams. Many of them would be spending more a year on travel and accommodation costs to attend competitions than they would on some of their basic living needs - whether that's rent or groceries, or whatever it may be."
The Australian Sports Foundation runs a dedicated platform to help athletes fundraise for any specific needs that might help their career.
According to Mr Holloway, there are now more than 1,200 individual athletes, ranging from lower level to elite Olympic level represented on the platform.
"At the moment there is around 50 athletes on the platform that qualified to compete in Paris in various different sports, and probably 24 Paralympians that have qualified to go to Paris for the Paralympics. It's been a record-breaking 12 months for the Australian Sports Foundation. In the last financial year, we came in at $98.8 million raised for sport, which is fantastic."
The athletes' pledges range from a couple of thousands to tens of thousands dollars — to cover, among other things, travel costs, training, equipment, or physiotherapy.
Mr Holloway explains that, though the Foundation has been around since 1986, it started running individual peer-to-peer fundraising for athletes in 2016.
"That was born out of the Rio 2016 Games, where our remit is to raise funds for the development of sport in Australia. In 2016, we approached the ATO and the government to allow us to have individuals on the platform as well, and with Rio as the catalyst for that. We've been helping individual athletes fundraise since 2016. But we've been around for a lot longer than that and raised well in excess of $700 million; and helped tens of thousands of Australian sporting clubs and athletes raise funds."
In August 2023, the ASF released the "Running on Empty" report that stated that half of Australia’s elite athletes were earning less than $23,000 a year, which put them below the poverty line.
"Elite athletes dedicate over six hours a day, six days a week to their sport, to their passion. That makes it very, very difficult to be able to hold down a full-time job and provide the same dedication to a vocation as it would to their sport. They are in desperate need of additional funding and additional funding sources. At the ASF, we are very proud to be able to work with the athletes; and provide an alternate funding model for them. That's really the one thing within sport that needs to be looked at - is the funding mix."
In a statement to SBS, a spokesperson from the Department of Health and Aged Care said: "the Australian Government supplements the incomes of athletes on their path to representing Australia through the direct athlete support grants (dAIS)".
According to the Department, since the Tokyo Olympics, the federal government has committed more than $47 million across 36 sporting organisations in dAIS grants.
It says eligible athletes training in Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games sports receive between $4,000 to $37,500 per year.
It adds that at the start if July 2024, the federal government announced a support package of $489 million over two years for high performance sport, to see more athletes supported to perform at their best.
It also includes funding for national sporting organisations to support athletes through coaching and high performance programs.
According to Mr Kovalenko, while Australia is investing a lot to keep its sport successful, there is still a significant role for the government to play to create a wider system of support for the athletes.
He explained to SBS, that in some other countries, athletes are employed by state organisations, providing them with a full-time salary and financial stability.
"In more than 20 countries, sports is supported by the Navy, Army, Police. In Italy, France, and many others - they are officers or soldiers. In Japan, they are supported a lot by the leading companies — like Honda team, Toyota team, Mitsubishi team. It’s huge big support, and it’s their job number one to be the best in the world in their business. It's not very easy. We're not asking them just to have fun, because the goals are very serious. They have to prove to the investors and to the government that they deserve the support."
